Brent Smith: "This album is about Life and Death"

Video: Shinedown's Brent Smith and Zach Myers on the making of Threat To Survival

Shinedown singer Brent Smith and guitarist Zach Myers have spoken to Classic Rock about the creation of the band's most recent album, Threat To Survival. The album came out in September, hitting the Top 20 of the album chart in the UK and the Top 10 in the US. It has sold over 150,000 copies.

"Threat To Survival is definitely about life and death," says Smith. "The writing process was quite intense from the lyrical side of things... Coming into this album, everything was a blank canvas. But it's a beautiful record, but it's also a very devastating record."

"Where Amaryllis was a record about life and being alive and all these beautiful things, this is a darker record," says Myers. "It's about surviving, it's about the fact that the sun's not always out every day, it's about the fact that you're gonna have days that you don't want to happen, that are out of your control. You're gonna have bad days, and it's about how to overcome those."

Earlier this month, Shinedown released a video for State Of My Head. The band have also been confirmed for next year's Download Festival, and play the Carnival Of Souls tour with Black Stone Cherry and Halestorm next year (dates below).